Jim Noir

Sunday 9 March 2008 20.23 EDT
First published on Sunday 9 March 2008 20.23 EDT

Jim Noir looks like he has not had a haircut since he first arrived on the scene. In a green wooly hat and Fair Isle tank top, he looks like a cross between a character from Withnail and I and a garden gnome. When he first appears, shortly before midnight, he appears utterly befuddled. "Goodnight!" he begins, before launching into Eany Meany, a bouncy romp in which he threatens to "set my dad" on a neighbour who refuses to return his football.

When Noir emerged three years ago, such songs earned the twentysomething a reputation as the oldest kid in pop and his melodies the tag of the "Chorlton Brian Wilson". Since then, his songs have quietly infiltrated the nation's consciousness via adverts, but he is shifting tack again. The switch from mod to hippy coiffure signifies a change towards psychedelic whimsy. His new songs retain their melodic wonderment but are written from the perspective of a dying man giving a child advice. Still, they are humourous as well as profound, Look Around You expressing regret at a life not lived, but managing to declare its creator's fondness for the local chippie.

It is hard to think of many artists who would debut new material in what is effectively the local disco, but the former Alan Roberts is particularly gifted at spotting the sublime in the ridiculous and vice versa. He is equally comfortable grappling with a kazoo as if it were a stethoscope, or unleashing a melodic masterpiece like Ships and Clouds, which suggests the Beach Boys really did grow up in north-west suburbia. Gradually, a sea of tunes suggests the man in the hat is in his prime. Chorlton's Badly Drawn Boy wore a woolly hat and lifted the Mercury prize. Perhaps, in these parts, woollen headgear bestows mysterious musical powers.